You Don't Always Get What You Want
by Nico Grey
II
As always, Ed woke at six o'clock. He turned off the alarm before it could disturb the peace of his morning.
Something didn't feel right. Ed took a moment to assess his surroundings before realization set in. The familiar cries of chickadees, heard throughout the winter, had been replaced by the melodic mating call of robins.
'I wonder when that happened,' he thought to himself. For months, the sound landscape in his part of Vermont had been dominated by chickadees and snowmobiles. 'Mostly snowmobiles,' he observed sourly.
Ed kept his fingers crossed that the spring arrival of robins also signaled the departure of snow machines until the following winter.
He finished making coffee and preparing his breakfast in blessed silence. But it was still rather early in the day for the snowmobiles' onslaught of sound to begin, so Ed didn't allow the silence to inspire hope yet. He took his time over his eggs and toast, an ear cocked warily and anticipating disappointment.
It was only when Ed sat down, turned on his computer, and finally navigated to his e-mail program, that he began to feel real hope that the snow machines had fallen silent until the following winter.
But Ed's universe wasn't about to swing wildly out of balance. He had a new disappointment awaiting him. There was an e-mail. It came from his ex-wife.
Ed considered 'losing' the message. Things happened on the internet, he reasoned. Emily would never know that he had lost the message deliberately— or at least she would never be able to prove it. But, he sighed, that wouldn't stop her from trying again if she was determined to contact him. Reluctantly, he double-clicked on the icon.
He regretted it, of course. But from the nature of the message, he also knew that she wouldn't have simply let it go. The subject was too important to her. It was about money.
Money had always been a touchy subject between them. She was no doubt frustrated that he had done quite well financially after she left him. But after cheating on Ed with a guy whose prospects had appeared better at the time, insisting on divorcing him, and then fleeing across the country with the kids without really getting family court approval after her second relationship fell apart, the only financial leverage that Emily still had over Ed was moral and emotional. Going back to court for increased child support would have raised too many issues that left her vulnerable.
It hadn't helped Emily that her moral case, considering past behavior, was never going to be strong either. And after betraying Ed, then helping to poison the kids' minds against him, she found that she also didn't have much emotional leverage left with him. But, he conceded, she was persistent. It wasn't one of her more attractive qualities.
Ed wasn't inclined to buy her story. She never really spelled it out clearly in the first place. Plausible deniability of a sort, he assumed. And a five-year-old grandson, that he had never even heard of until that moment, in need of expensive medical treatments, seemed unlikely. Emily's proposal, that Ed send twenty thousand dollars directly to her so she could make the proper arrangement, only deepened his skepticism.
Ed found himself wishing he could hear the familiar whine of snowmobiles in the distance. He knew Emily too well to simply accept her story at face value. But there was at least a possibility that it was true, so ignoring her plea wasn't really possible either.
'Where are those damned machines?' he wondered to himself. Ed briefly entertained the possibility of buying one, if it would just make the e-mail go away.
He was resigned to answering Emily's message. But he wasn't going to simply give in to emotional blackmail. And certainly not without first making sure the story was legitimate.
'Send Meghan my contact information,' Ed wrote back. 'I'll make sure that our grandson gets the care that he needs. What's his name?' He really couldn't resist a bit of passive aggression.
After he hit 'send', Ed wondered if he would hear back from Emily. He really hoped not. It wouldn't help his non-existent relationship with his kids when he investigated the story if Meghan did get in touch with him. But after fifteen years without any sort of contact with Meghan, he had no way of knowing whether she and her mother might conspire on a story to serve their own agenda.
Not for the first time in the past twenty years, Ed kicked himself for not pressing harder to maintain a relationship with his son and daughter. Emily would have fought him every inch of the way, he was sure. But that was no excuse for the way that he simply gave up when she moved the kids across the country, then manufactured excuses to prevent any meaningful contact between him and the kids.
Ed sighed again. Then he opened his "Ed Russell" work folder. After the way his day had started, he was quite certain that Trenton Dyce would be in no mood to work.
"How often is that darned boy out there?" Ed greeted Chet Jordan.
Chet glanced up in surprise. He wasn't used to having Ed initiate their conversations.
"I didn't realize he was there. I'll invite him in," Chet wasn't beyond tweaking Ed a little. He rather enjoyed the brief look of alarm that crossed Ed's face.
"More often than is good for him," Chet conceded. "I'm worried. He doesn't say much, but I get the feeling that things between him and Les are only getting worse."
"Les?" Ed rubbed the side of his head. "Oh, yeah. That's the snowmobile fiend. Haven't had to think much about him since the thaw."
" It was better for Eric when Les was spending most of the day riding," Chet opined. "At least he left the boy alone then."
Ed grunted. He was already regretting mentioning the kid outside. He shuffled to the periodicals to see what was new. His 'EduK8R4Life' correspondent had recently suggested a few new articles to him.
Ed hoped that he was wrong when he heard to store's door open cautiously.
"Can I sweep the floor for you today, Mr. Jordan?" Ed cursed softly at the sound of the timid, youthful voice.
"It really doesn't need that much attention, Eric, now that mud season is over," Chet said. "Is the library closed?"
"Just for a little while. Mrs. Reid won't let me stay there when she goes on her lunch break."
Ed thought the voice sounded wistful. He was disturbed to find himself thinking that he could relate to the sentiment.
"Well," Ed thought he detected a tiny bit of malice in Chet's voice, "Why don't you find a magazine or newspaper over among the periodicals? Something to keep you occupied until the library opens again."
"Is there a new History Journal?" The boy sounded hopeful.
" Ms. Mitchell already got hers. But she left one for you. Maybe you'll find something in it to talk to her about. . . if you're in school tomorrow!" Even from fifty feet away, Ed could tell that there was no sincerity in the reproachful tone.
"Yes, sir!"
The sound of feet almost skipping in his direction was too much for Ed. He fled toward the cash register.
"You know, Chet," Ed growled, "You really shouldn't be encouraging truancy."
"You know, Ed," Chet grinned back, "You might need an attitude adjustment."
"Can't afford one," Ed sighed. "The divorce took just about everything else I had."
Ed was pleased with himself. . . or at least pleased with Trenton Dyce. His creative dam had broken just a few weeks after the winter ice let go, setting off weeks of steady writing. He had completed two short stories and had just wrapped the final chapter for a novel he had started the previous autumn. After living through a long, dry winter, the burst of activity had come as an enormous relief.
Now Ed was starting to become concerned about some projects that Ed Russell needed to finish. It could become so complicated, living a double life, he mused. It was a very good thing that there weren't any people in his life to add to his burdens.
People in mind, Ed decided to check his e-mail. He hadn't heard back from Emily— or from Meghan, for that matter— since her attempt to finesse twenty thousand dollars from him. He was starting to think that might be the last of the matter, but it was never a good idea to underestimate Emily's persistence.
Instead, he found a message waiting from EduK8R4Life. As usual, the message was brief and mentioned a few Vermont history items that had recently come to her attention. She rarely touched on personal matters, but did briefly allude to the approaching end to the school year and missing students that would be moving up to higher classes.
Ed chuckled. He shouldn't have been surprised, he thought, between her passion for Vermont history and her e-mail address. Of course she was a teacher. He had just never connected the dots before.
Pondering the message, Ed decided to take a quick trip into town. He realized that he probably needed a few groceries. And it wouldn't hurt to stop at Chet Jordan's store to see if he had any of the periodicals in stock that his teacher friend had mentioned.
"I see you finally got that gang problem under control," Ed greeted Chet when he entered the store.
" Oh!" Chet glanced up. "Yeah. Eric hasn't been around too much lately. I guess he must already be feeling a bit of nostalgia for sixth grade. Things will change for him when he moves up to the big school next year."
Ed just grunted. There wasn't much to say to that. Life changed. You adapted. It went on.
He was browsing the periodical racks, looking for the issue of Vermont Magazine his correspondent had mentioned in her latest e-mail, when the store's front door flew open.
"Whoa, Eric! What's the rush?" Chet demanded. "The store is open until six o'clock tonight."
The boy appeared flushed and somewhat disheveled. He apologized profusely to Chet, but Ed noticed that the boy's eyes never left him. It made him distinctly uncomfortable.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Jordan. Ms. Mitchell told me about the new Vermont Magazine. She gave me permission to come down and check it out."
Ed hurriedly decided that he could return for the magazine another day. He gave the boy a wide berth and mumbled a few words to Chet on his way out the door. As he dashed to his Bronco, he couldn't help wondering what sort of teacher gave an elementary student permission to leave during the school day.
Ed didn't return to Chet Jordan's store for two months. It wasn't that he expected to find the boy still lurking around, laying in wait for him— although that was a concern. Instead, he had been busy finishing pieces on Vermont history and rural life that he sent out on spec to periodicals that featured those subjects.
More important, Trenton Dyce had another novel that was coming along quite nicely. Ed was so pleased with it that he was considering finding an agent to see if it might interest a traditional publishing house, rather than publishing again to an internet fiction site. And as was often the case when Trenton's muse was inspired, it had become a consuming process.
When Ed finally came up for air, he first went through his backlog of e-mails. Unsurprisingly, there wasn't much waiting for him. Site metrics from his publisher suggested that Trenton's work got a fair amount of attention, but few readers bothered to write to him.
Ed quickly responded to a short message from a fan. He was relieved to note that he still hadn't heard from Emily again. But there was a brief message from his educator friend, wishing him a pleasant summer. Her tone sounded wistful.
Ed took a moment to reflect. EduK8R4Life. It did sound like a passion. And if it was as consuming a passion as writing fiction could be for Trenton Dyce, he could understand that the school's summer break might leave her feeling maudlin.
Before he could empathize too strongly, Ed was reminded that he still hadn't collected the Vermont Magazine she had mentioned in her last message. With the novel almost completed, and then needing a few weeks on the shelf before he started a rewrite process, he decided it might be a good day to slow down a bit and take a trip into town.
Ed travelled Route 42 to Brattleboro for his grocery shopping. It wasn't that he needed anything that he couldn't find in Antioch, but the selection in the larger stores was better. And it was a beautiful summer day for a drive— enough to justify dealing with the number of people he would find in Brattleboro.
Pulling back into Antioch almost two hours later, he found a parking place near Chet Jordan's store. As he hauled himself out of the Bronco, he almost ducked back inside and drove hurriedly away.
He barely recognized the small boy hanging around outside the store. If the boy had grown much, Ed was sure that he wouldn't have recognized him. He was dressed for summer, the cutoff jeans and dark t-shirt unfamiliar attire to Ed. He was also shorn for summer.
Ed eyed the boy for a few moments before he made a cautious decision. 'He doesn't appear to be armed,' he smirked. 'And I'm still twice his size.' He shut and locked the door of the Bronco behind him. He gave the boy a wide berth, but got no reaction beyond the surly expression on the boy's face.
" What in the name of god happened to your little hooligan?" Ed demanded as soon as he was safely in the store. "It looks like he joined forces with the local skinheads."
Chet sighed. "That's Les," he explained. "He's been giving Eric a hard time about the length of his hair for years. Something happened between them a couple of weeks ago and I guess Les snapped."
"He shaved off his hair?" Ed wasn't often surprised by people's behavior, but this seemed excessive.
"Eric was real proud of it, too. Well, you know," he shrugged, "small as he is, it gave him something to feel special about himself. But Les and the boy don't get along. Maybe the hair reminded him of Carla. I don't know."
Ed felt a strange tickle of sympathy for the boy. He quickly suppressed it by wandering back to check out the collection of periodicals.
"You wouldn't still have that issue of Vermont Magazine from a couple months ago?" he asked Chet.
" That's the current issue," Chet informed him. "I don't think I'm sold out yet."
Ed sensed that Chet had something on his mind— that the conversation wasn't over, whether he liked it or not.
"You know, Ed, it's going to be a tough summer for Eric."
Ed cringed.
"Leaving sixth grade will create a big hole in his life. Judy Mitchell has had a powerful influence on him over the past couple of years."
Ed knew that Chet expected him to say something. But he was sure that he could wait him out.
"That little guy has developed a real interest in history. He's just full of facts and information now," Chet chuckled. "Of course he's only eleven, so he can rattle on a bit at times. He's still trying to figure out how it all fits together."
Ed grabbed a magazine at random and began to skim through it. 'Rats!' he thought to himself when he recognized the New England Journal of Medicine. But he feigned interest.
" You know," Chet paused carefully for a moment, "he even asked me if I could help him find that piece you wrote about Native Americans during the early colonial days and their summer encampments up the Connecticut River. He seemed very interested."
Ed started. "Who told him about that?!"
"It wasn't me," Chet assured him hurriedly. "Maybe Judy Mitchell. She may have recognized a potential interest. The boy has Indian blood, probably from Carla's side of the family. You can see the mark on him."
"There are plenty of other ways to spark his interest without dragging me into it!" Ed complained. "I wonder how his teacher even knows who I am."
Behind the counter, Chet busied himself with some paperwork.
"Did you get what you want?" Chet asked when Ed dropped three magazines on the checkout counter.
Ed gestured toward the small stack of periodicals and pulled his wallet out of his pocket. He glanced surreptitiously out the front door.
Before he could ask, Chet interrupted. "It could do that little guy a world of good if you just said a few words to him on the way to your car."
Ed closed his eyes. "I can't use the back door?"
"Of course you can, Ed. If you want to," Chet assured him. "But think about what I said. You have something to offer people. Especially young people like Eric."
"Well don't let that get around town," Ed grumbled. "It won't do anything for my reputation."
He sighed.
"I'll use your front door. But I'm not going to say anything."
It took so long to happen that Ed had almost stopped waiting for the other shoe to drop.
'Emily must be a lot taller than I remember,' he thought to himself. 'Six months is a long time for a shoe to be falling.'
It was an e-mail from Meghan. 'I think that was my daughter's name,' Ed realized that it had been close to twenty years since he last heard from her directly.
After skimming the message, Ed was confused. He was pretty sure that Emily had mentioned a five-year-old grandson in her e-mail. Meghan's message was about a child. But she never specified the gender. And Ed had the sense that she was referring to someone younger than five. More to the point, the amount of support necessary had climbed to fifty thousand dollars.
He palmed his eyes and rubbed vigorously. If this message had come from a Nigerian prince, he concluded, it would have ended up in his trash folder immediately. But he assumed that it actually was from his daughter. So despite the inconsistencies in the story, he couldn't just throw it away.
Ed also didn't feel comfortable challenging Meghan or Emily directly. That was one of those errors that would, were his intuition wrong, permanently close doors. And while Ed realized that the door in question hadn't really been open for almost twenty years— long enough that he wasn't sure it mattered any more— it felt like a bad idea to slam it shut and set it on fire.
Thirty minutes later, Ed hit 'send' on a carefully worded missive full of commiseration for Meghan's— and his grand. . . child's?— misfortune. He asked his daughter to send him a bit of identifying information and the name and contact information for any doctors and hospitals that would be caring for the child, with the promise that he would give those providers his financial information and assurances that he would pay them directly for their services.
Ed hoped that there wouldn't be any more shoes falling. He was reluctant to provide such an open-ended promise to medical institutions that might not be all that scrupulous. But he decided that he could figure out those details if Meghan did get back in touch. He had the money to hire lawyers able to protect him from fraud, if necessary.
The summer had been a productive one for Ed, and a busy one. He had finished writing the Dyce novel, then spent some time investigating his publishing options. In the end, he decided to send it to his usual online publisher. Approaching sixty years of age seemed like the wrong time to start building a traditional writing career. And he really didn't need the money. But he did bookmark a few self-publishing options for future consideration.
He was also looking forward to seeing some of his non-fiction work that would soon be arriving in print. Ed decided that a visit to Chet's store was in order. It had been a while.
Before he made plans for the day, he opened his e-mail application. It had been three months since he had heard from Meghan. And he hadn't heard a word from Emily since early spring. Their silence was becoming ominous.
He was surprised to find that the only message in his incoming mail folder was from EduK8R4Life. Ed sensed immediately that something was off.
First, he realized, was that he hadn't heard from her all summer. In previous years, she had become a more frequent correspondent during the summer months.
Second was that the current message was much longer than her customary concise and fairly cheerful notes.
The gist of the message was that she had been worried all summer about a student that she had become close to in recent years. He was moving on to a new school and she was both worried about whether he would continue to make progress. She was feeling some sense of personal loss.
Compounding her stress was a family matter. She had been away much of the summer, spending time visiting her younger sister and her sister's family. Problems were brewing in that family. Their oldest child had turned twelve over the summer and there were signs that he might be developing some same-sex attractions. Sexual attractions, as it were.
Since her sister's husband was virulently homophobic. . . Well, it was stressful. Very stressful.
EduK8R was apologetic. She had always respected what she sensed were Ed's personal boundaries. But she was hoping that he might be able to offer some advice. Or maybe just an encouraging word. She wanted hope.
She was aware of Ed's work in LGBT literature, despite the usual focus on history in their correspondence. She wondered if he might have any ideas on what she could do to help her sister and her nephew.
'I'm not Dear Abby," Ed grumbled to himself. But he did his best to be encouraging. He praised her efforts to support her family. He extolled the benefits of just being there and being willing to listen, and didn't feel the least bit hypocritical for doing so. He was listening, he reasoned, even if he wasn't feeling very enthusiastic about it.
Ed was almost relieved to finally drive into town. He never enjoyed dealing directly with people. But strangers rarely accosted him on the street seeking life advice about possibly-gay family members. That had been new territory for Ed.
He actually was relieved to discover that there was no gang activity outside Chet's store. A moment too late, he realized that he probably shouldn't have mentioned it.
"I haven't seen much of him this fall," Chet said. "Sometimes he stops in on weekends. But he's up at Silver River now. Started seventh grade in September. And the school is too far out of town for him to slip over here whenever he feels like it."
"Probably for the best, Chet," Ed advised. "It was only a matter of time before he had a bunch of gang bangers hanging out with him. That wouldn't have been good for your business."
Chet laughed. "Sometimes I'm really not sure you understand that Eric isn't a gangster. He's just a kid having a hard time growing up without a mother around."
" He should meet my ex-wife. Then he'd realize how lucky he is." Ed wandered back toward his usual station at the periodicals display.
"He'd be a lot better off if his father cared about him." Chet wasn't ready to let go of the topic. "Or if any decent guy took just a little interest in him."
"Oh, this looks interesting!" Ed exclaimed, before realizing that he had grabbed a medical journal again.
Later that evening, Ed found himself regretting his trip into town. Since returning home, he just couldn't get his flow going. He had tried working as Trenton Dyce for several hours. But what had been flowing steadily for months had now suddenly dried up. Even Ed Russell couldn't seem to find a handle on any new projects.
' People sure can complicate life,' he muttered to himself, finally giving up and trading his study and computer for the back yard and a rake. Ed hoped that the steady rhythm of manual labor might help settle his thoughts and leave him in a better frame of mind by morning.
Eight steady days of raking and Ed was still spending the majority of each day in his back yard. Most of the surrounding trees were already bare. The lawn was raked down to little more than bare earth, with a few hardy clumps of grass remaining. He hoped that creative inspiration would hit before he raked out a trench.
No matter how Ed worked to settle his mind and to order his thoughts for work, he still found himself staring vacantly at his computer screen every morning. Eventually, he bowed to the inevitable and found something productive to do around his property. He never particularly enjoyed yard work. But it was better than staring at a computer all day with a growing sense of frustration.
Eventually, even yard work started to make Ed feel uneasy. He couldn't shake a sense that someone, or maybe something, was watching him. Out in the open, alone, but he still felt oppressed by the vague expectations that people placed on him.
Finally, Ed surrendered and returned to what he was starting to suspect was the source of his frustration.
Ed parked his Bronco several spaces down from Chet Jordan's shop. He wasn't surprised to see a tiny gangster pacing back and forth outside the store. It was a Saturday.
He tried to observe the boy out of the corner of his eye, without making direct contact. He didn't look any taller. If anything, he looked even less well cared for than he had before. At least his hair was starting to grow back in. It looked like it was already brushing the back of his collar.
Ed exited the Bronco. He really wasn't sure what he was going to say or do. Indecisive, he allowed instinct to take over. He gave the boy a wide berth and entered Chet's store.
Chet was surprised to see him.
"What brings you into town on a Saturday, Ed?" It was unusual.
" Supporting local business, Chet," Ed replied. "I finished cleaning the yard this morning and thought I might poke around here. I haven't checked out your book selection in a while. There's something about holding a book in your hand before you buy it that the Amazon experience just can't match."
" Of course I don't have the selection that Amazon has, but you're welcome to look. I even have a decent selection of used books in the back room," he gestured in that direction, "if you want to check them out. Lots of people around here are getting rid of their old books and converting their library to e-books." He shook his head.
Eventually, Ed found his way in among the used books and proceeded to lose himself there for the better part of an hour. He was intent on the selection available, but was subliminally pleased to hear customers coming in and out of Chet's store. For all that he was as guilty as anyone of purchasing his wants and needs with a couple of keystrokes and the click of a mouse, he understood the importance of local businesses to small towns.
Ed had a fair collection of books in his arms when he finally emerged from the back room. He almost panicked when he noticed Chet's hoodlum standing near the cash register, craning his neck to participate in a conversation between Chet and an older woman.
Chet noticed Ed and his armful of books. He cleared a space at the counter for them with a gesture.
"You're reading material for the winter?" Chet grinned.
"Some of it," Ed allowed. "I'm sure I'll be back."
" Oh, Ed." It seemed that the thought had just occurred to Chet. He turned his attention to the lady standing at the counter. "Do you know Judy Mitchell? She teaches history at the elementary school."
She was fairly tall with very straight posture. In her late forties or early fifties, Ed estimated, and still quite attractive. Her hair was vibrantly red, although he suspected that was the result of some artifice. Her expression was open and observant.
Her greeting was pleasant. But it left Ed with a vague impression of familiarity; like theirs wasn't entirely a chance encounter. And that feeling made him uncomfortable.
He tried to avoid being impolite. Just busy. He had a feeling that being too sociable might result in obligations he wasn't prepared to take on.
Ed paid for his purchases, loaded them into his arms, and excused himself. As he fumbled with the door, the boy leaped to pull it open for him.
"I know who you are," he announced as Ed slipped past him and through the doorway.
"Please don't tell me," Ed insisted. "I'd prefer to be left in suspense."
The boy's look of confusion, then hurt, bothered Ed more than he thought it should have. 'Why didn't I just thank him for holding the door?' he wondered.
As the door was slowly closing, he could hear Chet and the teacher offering consolation. "Sometimes people aren't comfortable being too familiar with people they don't know well," he could hear her telling the boy.
Ed loaded the purchased books into his Bronco. He was already fairly certain that he wasn't going to get any more work done when he got home.
Ed didn't ordinarily give Thanksgiving a second thought. He hadn't celebrated it as a family holiday since Emily took the kids and left. He and Vic had enjoyed a quiet turkey dinner each year while Vic was still alive. But in the four years since, the day hadn't even registered in Ed's mind.
Until this one.
He didn't understand. Nothing in his life had changed, except for the silence.
He hadn't been sure whether he would hear from Emily or Meghan again. In most ways he was glad that he hadn't. But there was still something about their silence that bothered him.
He wondered if he would hear from EduK8R4Life again. He didn't really want to find himself providing advice on her family's coming of age crisis. But there was something about not hearing from her that bothered him.
And part of him missed his semi-regular contact with Chet Jordan. Since his last visit to the store, he hadn't felt comfortable about returning. But he was finding that he also felt uncomfortable about staying away.
Trenton Dyce wasn't feeling centered enough to write. Ed Russell drove himself into his work, but even he wasn't making much headway toward actually getting anything done.
Ed held out until three days before Christmas. And at that point, he was almost ready to stay home and survive the holiday on the supplies he had left in the house. He certainly wasn't looking forward to going shopping on the Friday before Christmas. But the crowds wouldn't get any better on Saturday. Ed decided to bite the bullet and brave the holiday throngs. But he certainly wasn't going anywhere near Brattleboro. He would have to find what he needed in Antioch.
Once he had purchased the groceries he needed, then all the paper products and medical supplies that were on his list, Ed paused to think about additional stops. He really wasn't feeling enthusiastic about sending Christmas cards to Danny and Meghan. And with the holiday falling on Monday, they weren't even going to reach Emily until after Christmas.
But he also found that he wanted to see Chet. He knew that he hadn't left a good impression after his last visit. And while he wasn't entirely sure that he wanted to apologize, Chet had become a friend of sorts over the years. He thought that he should at least make some sort of peace offering during the Christmas season.
Ed almost had second thoughts after he parked his Bronco. A small figure was shoveling snow off the sidewalk in front of Chet's store. He had been hoping for a quiet, uncomplicated moment with Chet. Instead, his very first image of the store screamed complication.
He tried not to take notice of the boy as he passed him and opened the door. But he was aware that the boy had noticed him. He hoped that there was still enough snow in front of Chet's store to keep him busy for just a few more minutes.
Chet looked up as Ed came through the front door. He seemed as pleased as always to see Ed.
"I still have a few Christmas cards left," he said, "although I'm afraid the selection is a bit thin."
Ed acknowledged that news.
"I decided to pass on the greeting cards this year, Chet. I think they'd probably prefer I transfer them cash."
Chet grimaced. But he didn't intrude.
"I just stopped in to wish you a happy holiday. That's become a bit of a tradition."
Chet acknowledged the greeting. "Happy holidays to you, too, Ed. Do you have any plans this year?"
"No," Ed shook his head. "Not much point. I'll probably spend the day working. I picked up some headphones a few weeks ago, so the snow demons shouldn't bother me at all."
The pause felt uncomfortable to Ed. He felt regret the moment he opened his mouth, but it was too late.
"I see you have that young fellow working for you. I hope that's working out."
"Well enough," Chet assured him. "It gives Eric something to do. But he really needs something more in his life."
Ed grimaced.
"It would mean a lot to him." Chet's expression softened. "He knows you write about local history. That's one of his passions. Having someone to share that with him. . ."
Chet considered his next words. He understood that Ed wouldn't welcome what came next. "Judy Mitchell was a wonderful teacher and mentor for Eric while he was in elementary school. But she knows that it's time for him to find someone else. And so does he. He really wants to find someone like you to mentor him."
Ed resisted the urge to run for the back door. He didn't want to be rude. But he wasn't able to tell Chet what he wanted to hear.
"I wish he wouldn't, Chet," Ed kept his tone of voice reasonable. "I had two children of my own. That didn't end well. I don't want a new family. I'm not kid friendly. I just want to be left alone."
There really wasn't much more to say.
"Happy holiday, Chet."
"Happy holiday, Ed." Jordan shook his head sadly as Ed opened the door.
Ed had completely forgotten what he would find outside. He wasn't prepared.
"Merry Christmas, mister."
It really annoyed Ed that the voice sounded so hopeful. He thought that he and Chet had already settled the matter.
"Don't you have some shoveling to do?" Ed thought that should be pointed out.
"But I just want to wish you a Merry Christmas, mister."
'God, kid, don't whine,' Ed cringed.
"You just did. Now can I please go?" he demanded.
"Why won't you wish me a Merry Christmas back?" the boy asked.
" Because I don't like people." Ed knew that he really should move on before his frustration got the better of him.
"But you like me." The boy's eyes were almost pleading.
"Why ever would you think that?" Ed demanded. The idea was absurd.
"You must like me. You're talking to me." The plaintive tone was really starting to irritate Ed.
"Well, I don't like you. But your persistence makes you difficult to ignore," Ed snapped. A voice inside warned him that he wasn't handling the situation very well at all.
"You'll like me if you keep talking to me."
Ed tried not to notice how vulnerable the kid looked.
"You could surprise me. But don't get your hopes up, boy."
That ended the exchange. The kid's shoulders slumped and his gaze fell toward his feet.
"Why should I care what a mean old man thinks about me?" the boy mumbled. It really sounded like he was asking the question of himself.
'Now you're getting the idea, kid,' Ed congratulated him. He spun on his heel and scurried away. But he had a hard time dismissing the disappointment he had seen in the boy's eyes.
'Damn!' he fumed as he flung open the door of his Bronco. 'I want to be left alone! Why won't people just leave me be?'
The image of those big brown eyes, slowly filling with tears as they looked away, stayed with him until he fell asleep that night.
Ed had no expectations for Christmas. He woke at the usual time and prepared his customary breakfast. He washed the breakfast dishes, then wandered into his study and turned on the computer.
While the computer went through its startup routine, Ed considered the need for his noise-cancelling headphones. Snowmobile hell had started rather early in the morning on the previous Christmas.
But Ed's expectations for the day weren't high. He hadn't been able to focus enough to work since his trip into town. He glanced at the headphones again. 'Why bother?' he decided.
When Ed finally noticed the penetrating whine of the snow machines, he realized that it was already mid-afternoon.
' Are they just getting started?' he wondered. Then, 'how did that happen?', when he noticed the size of the document open on his computer screen. Almost twelve thousand words was a very productive day, and it was barely half over.
Skimming back through the document, Ed felt like he was in a trance. He could barely remember writing large segments of the text. But it was right there on his screen. And as he considered the words, he realized that they had been gestating in his mind ever since his visit to town; since his encounter with that Bowman boy.
The basic story was an adventure drawn from Ed's own interest in Vermont history. The protagonist was a Native American boy of perhaps twelve years, coping with being different in his world and struggling to find acceptance.
The boy came to understand his difference against a backdrop of conflict between his Sokoki tribe and the Mohawk, whose warriors occasionally invaded southeastern Vermont and southwestern New Hampshire, as well as with the European settlers just starting to expand into the region.
The two-spirit concept had been a bit overused in LGBT literature, in Ed's opinion, in addition to not being particularly accurate historically. But as he read what he had written, it felt right. Every writer of historical fiction took occasional liberties with strict accuracy, simply to create a comprehensible story. And even the term "niizh manidoowag", while culturally more appropriate, certainly wasn't historically accurate.
Ed was quite confident that his "two-spirit" protagonist didn't take liberties with the essence of the people and of the period that he wrote about, even if he found the term culturally awkward. His young protagonist, Scawesco— 'and where did that name come from?', he wondered— was exploring his emotions and emerging sexual feelings in a way that was culturally appropriate to his time and place.
Scawesco's adventures, after being separated from his people and driven into the wilderness by a Mohawk raid, ranged across the landscape of the area as it existed during the early eighteenth century. He became familiar with the famous petroglyphs on the Connecticut River at what would later be Bellows Falls. In time, he encountered a white boy of about his own age named Micah Baldwin.
Ed was pleased to recall that there were already Baldwins in the region at that time, although he hoped that a young Micah Baldwin had never been alone and trying to eke out an existence in the wilderness that would soon become known as Rockingham. He understood where the relationship between Scawesco and Micah was going. He really didn't look forward to fending off any defamation lawsuits from present-day members of the Baldwin family.
By the time he finished reading what was already written, Ed was feeling quite pleased with his work. He made a note to visit Rockingham, just to make a few observations and notes about the landscape. He never knew how Sokoki Falls, there on the Williams River in Rockingham, had come by its name. But the idea of tying Scawesco and Micah's adventures to that location appealed to the historian in him.
Ed spent several more hours adding to his notes and drawing up a plot outline to direct the story. He never even noticed when the snowmobiles finally called it a night.
As he grazed again through what he had written, and skimmed his notes one more time, Ed found himself wondering why his recent encounter with the Bowman boy had triggered this particular story. There was little doubt in his mind that it was his feelings after the boy's reaction that had been working away quietly in his mind until they emerged as this story. But he was having difficulty drawing a direct line between the boy and the result.
Chet had mentioned once that the boy probably had ancestors that were among the original peoples of the area. But Ed couldn't recall Chet ever saying that the boy was gay. Had he implied it? And if he didn't, Ed wondered, why would that encounter prompt him to write a story about a Native American boy that was two-spirits?
He tried to dispel the question from his mind. It was a good story. He was sure of that. And he intended to finish it. Why let concerns about why he wrote it interfere with completion of a decent story? He just wanted to write a story that people would enjoy; no more than that.
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